I don’t agree with that at all.
I have heard no version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony that is anywhere close to Carlos Kleiber’s recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. And I don’t think that it will ever be equalled, let alone bettered.
Similarly with the Callas/de Sabata/La Scala recording of Puccini’s ‘Tosca’, even though it’s a mono recording which is over seventy years old.
These are just two recordings, there are many more. Mathematics has nothing to do with it.
Just ordered the Boult Holst.
Reading the cover notes, KEF sponsored the recording in tribute to Sir Adrian and stating it “is a hifi test piece par excellence”.
Sorry Graham…
I think that the Kleiber 5 is one of the most over-rated performances of all time. I have tried and tried to work out what is all the hype, but to no avail. It’s good, but not that good. Actually his 7th is better.
It’s really impossible to say which is the best 5th, it’s so personal.
I personally like Karajan (62 or 77), Leibowitz (62 ? off top of my head), Barenboim and Vanska). But that’s just me.
Oh, and I prefer Leontyne Price in Tosca… 
I have LPs of the Karajan '62 and '77 Beethoven sets, and they are very good, but I think that CK’s account is better. I also have a ‘bootleg’ CD of the live performance which CK conducted with Chicago SO (at Solti’s special invitation), which is thrilling, although the sound isn’t great.
Leontyne Price’s ‘Tosca’ under Karajan with the Vienna PO for Decca is also great, and wonderfully produced by John Culshaw. Price’s singing is probably technically better than Callas, but I think that the emotion that Callas portrays is unmatched.
Of course, we’re not forced to make one-or-the-other choices. It’s great to be able to hear different accounts, and nice to be able to pick whichever recording we want to listen to on any given occasion.
I do so very strongly agree with that.
I have just spent a couple of evenings comparing a new recording of Brahms string sextets with my erstwhile favourite performance by the Raphael Ensemble. Does one trump the other? Of course not. Each offers a different view of these lovely works and to declare that one is “better” than the other, yet alone is a “best” recording, is a far too one-dimensional assessment. I shall certainly continue to enjoy and admire both.
Roger
The last week I’ve enjoyed the new 2022 transfer and remaster of the Solti Rheingold. Available at Qobuz in 192kHz.
The Deccaclassical website states the rest of the Ring will follow including the first vinyl-release of the Solti Ring in 30 years. Also Dolby Atmos/Apple Spatial releases.
If you don’t like Carlos Kleiber’s way with Beethoven’s Fifth, I suggest that you try listening to something at the other end of the spectrum, perhaps one of Otto Klemperer’s accounts. Alternatively, Carlo Maria Giulini made a wonderful recording of the Fifth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for DGG. I think that ‘magisterial’ might be the word to describe it. It was one of a few Beethoven symphonies that Giulini made for DGG in the 1970s. Probably long gone from DGG’s catalogue, but very well worth a listen if you can track it down.
I like Giulini a lot. Klemperer puts me in a coma.
P.S. I don’t dislike Kleiber. It’s a good recording. I just don’t understand all the fuss.
Maybe I should listen to his Dad instead.
The younger Klemperer wasn’t so glacially slow. He was a great bear of a man in his younger days, but had a series of strokes that would probably have felled most others.
All Erich Kleiber’s Beethoven recordings are special. It’s unfortunate that he was conducting in an age before making multiple recordings of everything became the norm. Decca have not done well by him with a mishmash of uncoordinated releases. His recording of ‘The Marriage Of Figaro’, for example, is unlikely ever be bettered, but hasn’t been available for years now.
Not so very strange as you say. I only have one recording with the BBC Philharmonic which was recorded live in 2010 in the Bridgewater Hall. The booklet notes describe the 7th as Mahler’s problem symphony. The music is very complicated with contrasting themes. Mahler invited comparison with Rembrandt’s Night Watch - well certainly light and shade! The use of unusual instruments such as tenor horn, guitars, mandolins, cow bells etc adds to the strangeness of the symphony. However, although I don’t understand this music I enjoyed the live recording and the acoustics in the Bridgewater Hall are top notch especially the bass instruments which were really great.
Giulini’s Fifth was available in a box set called Giulini in America. There were actually two boxes with that name: one with the LA Phil and one with the Chicago Symphony (which I bought).
It looks like the CDs are OOP, but Presto has them as a download.
Decca released a 15 disc box set of Erich Kleiber’s recordings. It includes both Figaro and Rosenkavalier. It’s in stock at Presto. I have an earlier box set with most of the recordings.
The Decca/Kleiber box looks very worth buying, and at a very fair price too.
I’m not sure Guy made anything other than a thumping great loss on EMI.
If that’s the case, it’s very pleasing indeed. Grasping little asset stripper.
I have a ton of Enigma Variations recordings including most of those mentioned here. My favourites in order are Monteux, Del Mar (RPO), Boult, Barbirolli and George Hurst (Bournemouth SO). I find that nobody gets every variation right, so it’s a question of hearing ‘the whole’ as a coherent piece mixed with the best versions of your favourite individual variations. For me the critical ones are the Romanza, Finale and (of course) Nimrod.
Worth owning several of them as they’ll each reward you over time.
An exciting new musician is on the block; he only started the piano because he had nothing to do when his mates went to taekwondo!
Klemperer made two recordings of Beethoven 5. The first in mono and later another in stereo. The critic in the Gramophone reviewing the later version said the mono was preferable, probably at a faster tempo.
I think the first version is now long out of print.
Yes, Douglas, I think that that first one was ‘accidentally’ recorded in such a way as to make a stereo recording possible, as I have described elsewhere on this Forum.
At one point EMI or perhaps Testament released LPs or CDs of live recordings of Klemperer conducting a Cologne (I think) orchestra in a few Beethoven symphonies, and the Fifth may have been one of those. It’s a moot point, though, as they have long since disappeared.
I like the granite-like style of the elder Klemperer conducting the symphonies. That’s not the only way I like my Beethoven, but that’s why I have a dozen cycles.
On the other hand, the later set of concertos with Barenboim strikes me as turgid.
I have never been convinced by Daniel Barenboim as a conductor.
(A bit like Dave Grohl getting up from his drum stool to play guitar.)